CMIMC 2016

Problems from the CMIMC 2016

– Algebra

1 In a race, people rode either bicycles with blue wheels or tricycles with tan
wheels. Given that 15 more people rode bicycles than tricycles and there were
15 more tan wheels than blue wheels, what is the total number of people who
rode in the race?

2 Suppose that some real number x satisfies

log2 x + log8 x + log64 x = logx 2 + logx 16 + logx 128.
√
Given that the value of log2 x + logx 2 can be expressed as a c b , where a and c
are coprime positive integers and b is squarefree, compute abc.

(1+ℓ)2 13
3 Let ℓ be a real number satisfying the equation 1+ℓ2
= 37 . Then
(1 + ℓ)3 m
3
= ,
1+ℓ n
where m and n are positive coprime integers. Find m + n.

4 A line with negative slope passing through the point (18, 8) intersects the x and
y axes at (a, 0) and (0, b), respectively. What is the smallest possible value of
a + b?

5 The parabolas y = x2 + 15x + 32 and x = y 2 + 49y + 593 meet at one point

(x0 , y0 ). Find x0 + y0 .

6 For some complex number ω with |ω| = 2016, there is some real λ > 1 such
that ω, ω 2 , and λω form an equilateral
√ triangle in the complex plane. Then, λ
a+ b
can be written in the form
√ c , where a, b, and c are positive integers and b
is squarefree. Compute a + b + c.

7 Suppose a, b, c, and d are positive real numbers that satisfy the system of
equations
(a + b)(c + d) = 143,
(a + c)(b + d) = 150,
(a + d)(b + c) = 169.
Compute the smallest possible value of a2 + b2 + c2 + d2 .

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8 Let r1 , r2 , . . ., r20 be the roots of the polynomial x20 − 7x3 + 1. If

1 1 1
+ 2 + ··· + 2
r12 + 1 r2 + 1 r20 + 1
m
can be written in the form n where m and n are positive coprime integers, find
m + n.

9 Let ⌊x⌋ denote the greatest integer function and {x} = x − ⌊x⌋ denote the
p of x. Letp1 ≤ x1 < . . . < x100 be the 100 smallest values of x ≥ 1
fractional part
such that ⌊x⌋⌊x3 ⌋ + {x}{x3 } = x2 . Compute
50
X 1
.
x2 − x22k−1
k=1 2k

10 Denote by F0 (x), F1 (x), . . . the sequence of Fibonacci polynomials, which sat-

isfy the recurrence F0 (x) = 1, F1 (x) = x, and Fn (x) = xFn−1 (x) + Fn−2 (x) for
all n ≥ 2. It is given that there exist unique integers λ0 , λ1 , . . ., λ1000 such that
1000
X
x1000 = λi Fi (x)
i=0

for all real x. For which integer k is |λk | maximized?

– Combinatorics

1 The phrase ”COLORFUL TARTAN” is spelled out with wooden blocks, where
blocks of the same letter are indistinguishable. How many ways are there to
distribute the blocks among two bags of different color such that neither bag
contains more than one of the same letter?

2 Six people each flip a fair coin. Everyone who flipped tails then flips their
coin again. Given that the probability that all the coins are now heads can be
expressed as simplified fraction m
n , compute m + n.

3 At CMU, markers come in two colors: blue and orange. Zachary fills a hat
randomly with three markers such that each color is chosen with equal proba-
bility, then Chase shuffles an additional orange marker into the hat. If Zachary
chooses one of the markers in the hat at random and it turns out to be orange,
the probability that there is a second orange marker in the hat can be expressed
as simplified fraction m
n . Find m + n.

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4 Kevin colors three distinct squares in a 3 × 3 grid red. Given that there exist
two uncolored squares such that coloring one of them would create a horizontal
or vertical red line, find the number of ways he could have colored the original
three squares.

5 Let S be a regular 18-gon, and for two vertices in S define the distance between
them to be the length of the shortest path along the edges of S between them
(e.g. adjacent vertices have distance 1). Find the number of ways to choose
three distinct vertices from S such that no two of them have distance 1, 8, or
9.

6 Shen, Ling, and Ru each place four slips of paper with their name on it into a
bucket. They then play the following game: slips are removed one at a time,
and whoever has all of their slips removed first wins. Shen cheats, however,
and adds an extra slip of paper into the bucket, and will win when four of
his are drawn. Given that the probability that Shen wins can be expressed as
simplified fraction m
n , compute m + n.

7 There are eight people, each with their own horse. The horses are arbitrarily
arranged in a line from left to right, while the people are lined up in random
order to the left of all the horses. One at a time, each person moves rightwards
in an attempt to reach their horse. If they encounter a mounted horse on their
way to their horse, the mounted horse shouts angrily at the person, who then
scurries home immediately. Otherwise, they get to their horse safely and mount
it. The expected number of people who have scurried home after all eight people
have attempted to reach their horse can be expressed as simplified fraction m n.
Find m + n.

8 Brice is eating bowls of rice. He takes a random amount of time t1 ∈ (0, 1)

minutes to consume his first bowl, and every bowl thereafter takes tn = tn−1 +rn
minutes, where tn−1 is the time it took him to eat his previous bowl and rn ∈
(0, 1) is chosen uniformly and randomly. The probability that it takes Brice at
least 12 minutes to eat 5 bowls of rice can be expressed as simplified fraction
m
n . Compute m + n.

9 1007 distinct potatoes are chosen independently and randomly from a box of
2016 potatoes numbered 1, 2, . . . , 2016, with p being the smallest chosen potato.
Then, potatoes are drawn one at a time from the remaining 1009 until the first
one with value q < p is drawn. If no such q exists, let S = 1. Otherwise, let
S = pq. Then given that the expected value of S can be expressed as simplified
fraction m
n , find m + n.

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10 For all positive integers m ≥ 1, denote by Gm the set of simple graphs with
exactly m edges. Find the number of pairs of integers (m, n) with 1 < 2n ≤
m ≤ 100 such that there exists a simple graph G ∈ Gm satisfying the following
property: it is possible to label the edges of G with labels E1 , E2 , . . ., Em such
that for all i 6= j, edges Ei and Ej are incident if and only if either |i − j| ≤ n
or |i − j| ≥ m − n.
Note: A graph is said to be simple if it has no self-loops or multiple edges.
In other words, no edge connects a vertex to itself, and the number of edges
connecting two distinct vertices is either 0 or 1.

– Computer Science

1 For how many distinct ordered triples (a, b, c) of boolean variables does the
expression a ∨ (b ∧ c) evaluate to true?

2 In concurrent computing, two processes may have their steps interwoven in an

unknown order, as long as the steps of each process occur in order. Consider
the following two processes:

Process A B
Step 1 x←x−4 x←x−5
Step 2 x←x·3 x←x·4
Step 3 x←x−4 x←x−5
Step 4 x←x·3 x←x·4
One such interweaving is A1, B1, A2, B2, A3, B3, B4, A4, but A1, A3, A2,
A4, B1, B2, B3, B4 is not since the steps of A do not occur in order. We run
A and B concurrently with x initially valued at 6. Find the minimal possible
value of x among all interweavings.

3 Sophia writes an algorithm to solve the graph isomorphism problem. Given a

graph G = (V, E), her algorithm iterates through all permutations of the set
{v1 , . . . , v|V | }, each time examining all ordered pairs (vi , vj ) ∈ V × V to see if an
edge exists. When |V | = 8, her algorithm makes N such examinations. What
is the largest power of two that divides N ?

4 Given a list A, let f (A) = [A[0] + A[1], A[0] − A[1]]. Alef makes two programs
to compute f (f (...(f (A)))), where the function is composed n times:

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1: FUNCTION T1 (A, n) 1: FUNCTION T2 (A, n)

2: IF n = 0 2: IF n = 0
3: RETURN A 3: RETURN A
4: ELSE 4: ELSE
5: RETURN [T1 (A, n − 1)[0] + T1 (A, n − 1)[1], 5: B ← T2 (A, n − 1)
T1 (A, n − 1)[0] − T1 (A, n − 1)[1]] 6: RETURN [B[0] + B[1], B
Each time T1 or T2 is called, Alef has to pay one dollar. How much money does
he save by calling T2 ([13, 37], 4) instead of T1 ([13, 37], 4)?

5 We define the weight of a path to be the sum of the numbers written on each
edge of the path. Find the minimum weight among all paths in the graph below
that visit each vertex precisely once:

http://i.imgur.com/V99Eg9j.png

6 Aaron is trying to write a program to compute the terms of the sequence defined
recursively by a0 = 0, a1 = 1, and
(
an−1 − an−2 n ≡ 0 (mod 2)
an =
2an−1 − an−2 else

However, Aaron makes a typo, accidentally computing the recurrence by

(
an−1 − an−2 n ≡ 0 (mod 3)
an =
2an−1 − an−2 else

For how many 0 ≤ k ≤ 2016 did Aaron coincidentally compute the correct
value of ak ?

7 Given the list

A = [9, 12, 1, 20, 17, 4, 10, 7, 15, 8, 13, 14],
we would like to sort it in increasing order. To accomplish this, we will perform
the following operation repeatedly: remove an element, then insert it at any
position in the list, shifting elements if necessary. What is the minimum number
of applications of this operation necessary to sort A?

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8 Consider the sequence of sets defined by S0 = {0, 1}, S1 = {0, 1, 2}, and for
n ≥ 2,
Sn = Sn−1 ∪ {2n + x | x ∈ Sn−2 }.
For example, S2 = {0, 1, 2} ∪ {22 + 0, 22 + 1} = {0, 1, 2, 4, 5}. Find the 200th
smallest element of S2016 .

9 Ryan has three distinct eggs, one of which is made of rubber and thus cannot
break; unfortunately, he doesn’t know which egg is the rubber one. Further, in
some 100-story building there exists a floor such that all normal eggs dropped
from below that floor will not break, while those dropped from at or above that
floor will break and cannot be dropped again. What is the minimum number of
times Ryan must drop an egg to determine the floor satisfying this property?

10 Given x0 ∈ R, f, g : R → R, we define the non-redundant binary tree T (x0 , f, g)

in the following way:

-The tree T initially consists of just x0 at height 0.

-Let v0 , . . . , vk be the vertices at height h. Then the vertices of height h + 1 are
added to T by: for i = 0, 1, . . . , k, f (vi ) is added as a child of vi if f (vi ) 6∈ T ,
and g(vi ) is added as a child of vi if g(vi ) 6∈ T .
For example, if f (x) = x + 1 and g(x) = x − 1, then the first three layers of
T (0, f, g) look like:

1 −1

2 −2

If f (x) = 1024x − 2047⌊x/2⌋ and g(x) = 2x − 3⌊x/2⌋ + 2⌊x/4⌋, then how many
vertices are in T (2016, f, g)?

– Geometry

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1 Let △ABC be an equilateral triangle and P a point on BC. If P B = 50 and

P C = 30, compute P A.

2 Let ABCD be an isosceles trapezoid with AD = BC = 15 such that the

distance between its bases AB and CD is 7. Suppose further that the circles
with diameters AD and BC are tangent to each other. What is the area of the
trapezoid?

3 Let ABC be a triangle. The angle bisector of ∠B intersects AC at point P ,

while the angle bisector of ∠C intersects AB at a point Q. Suppose the area
of △ABP is 27, the area of △ACQ is 32, and the area of △ABC is 72. The
√
length of BC can be written in the form m n where m and n are positive
integers with n as small as possible. What is m + n?

4 Andrew the Antelope canters along the surface of a regular icosahedron, which
has twenty equilateral triangle faces and edge length 4. If he wants to move
from one vertex to the opposite vertex, the minimum distance he must travel
√
can be expressed as n for some integer n. Compute n.

5 Let P be a parallelepiped with side lengths x, y, and z. Suppose that the four
space diagonals of P have lengths 15, 17, 21, and 23. Compute x2 + y 2 + z 2 .

6 In parallelogram ABCD, angles B and D are acute while angles A and C are
obtuse. The perpendicular from C to AB and the perpendicular from A to BC
intersect at a point P inside the parallelogram. If P B = 700 and P D = 821,
what is AC?

7 Let ABC be a triangle with incenter I and incircle ω. It is given that there exist
points X and Y on the circumference of ω such that ∠BXC = ∠BY C = 90◦ .
Suppose further that X, I, and Y are collinear. If AB = 80 and AC = 97,
compute the length of BC.

8 Suppose ABCD is a convex quadrilateral satisfying AB = BC, AC = BD,

∠ABD = 80◦ , and ∠CBD = 20◦ . What is ∠BCD in degrees?

9 Let △ABC be a triangle with AB = 65, BC = 70, and CA = 75. A semicircle

Γ with diameter BC is constructed outside the triangle. Suppose there exists
a circle ω tangent to AB and AC and furthermore internally tangent to Γ at a
√
point X. The length AX can be written in the form m n where m and n are
positive integers with n not divisible by the square of any prime. Find m + n.

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10 Let △ABC be a triangle with circumcircle Ω and let N be the midpoint of the
d The incircle ω of △ABC is tangent to AC and AB at points
major arc BC.
E and F respectively. Suppose point X is placed on the same side of EF as A
such that △XEF ∼ △ABC. Let N X intersect BC at a point P . Given that
PX
AB = 15, BC = 16, and CA = 17, compute XN .

– Number Theory

1 David, when submitting a problem for CMIMC, wrote his answer as 100 xy ,
where x and y are two positive integers with x < y. Andrew interpreted the
expression as a product of two rational numbers, while Patrick interpreted the
answer as a mixed fraction. In this case, Patrick’s number was exactly double
Andrew’s! What is the smallest possible value of x + y?

2 Let a1 , a2 , . . . be an infinite sequence of (positive) integers such that k divides

gcd(ak−1 , ak ) for all k ≥ 2. Compute the smallest possible value of a1 + a2 +
· · · + a10 .

3 How many pairs of integers (a, b) are there such that 0 ≤ a < b ≤ 100 and such
b −2a
that 22016 is an integer?

4 For some positive integer n, consider the usual prime factorization

k
Y
n= pei i = pe11 pe22 . . . pekk ,
i=1

where k is the number of primes factors of n and pi are the prime factors of n.
Define Q(n), R(n) by
k
Y k
Y
Q(n) = ppi i and R(n) = eei i .
i=1 i=1
For how many 1 ≤ n ≤ 70 does R(n) divide Q(n)?

5 Determine the sum of the positive integers n such that there exist primes p, q, r
satisfying pn + q 2 = r2 .

6 Define a tasty residue of n to be an integer 1 < a < n such that there exists an
integer m > 1 satisfying
am ≡ a (mod n).
Find the number of tasty residues of 2016.

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7 Determine the smallest positive prime p which satisfies the congruence

p + p−1 ≡ 25 (mod 143).
Here, p−1 as usual denotes multiplicative inverse.

8 Given that
70 X
X 70
xy m
=
y 67!
x=1 y=1

for some positive integer m, find m (mod 71).

9 Compute the number of positive integers n ≤ 50 such that there exist distinct
positive integers a, b satisfying
 
a b 1 1
+ =n + .
b a a b

10 Let f : N 7→ R be the function

∞
X 1
f (n) = .
lcm(k, n)2
k=1

π2
It is well-known that f (1) = 6 . What is the smallest positive integer m such
that m · f (10) is the square of a rational multiple of π?

– Team

1 Construction Mayhem University has been on a mission to expand and improve

its campus! The university has recently adopted a new construction schedule
where a new project begins every two days. Each project will take exactly one
more day than the previous one to complete (so the first project takes 3, the
second takes 4, and so on.)
Suppose the new schedule starts on Day 1. On which day will there first be at
least 10 projects in place at the same time?

2 Right isosceles triangle T is placed in the first quadrant of the coordinate plane.
Suppose that the projection of T onto the x-axis has length 6, while the pro-
jection of T onto the y-axis has length 8. What is the sum of all possible areas
of the triangle T ?

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3 We have 7 buckets labelled 0-6. Initially bucket 0 is empty, while bucket n

(for each 1 ≤ n ≤ 6) contains the list [1, 2, . . . , n]. Consider the following
program: choose a subset S of [1, 2, . . . , 6] uniformly at random, and replace
the contents of bucket |S| with S. Let pq be the probability that bucket 5 still
contains [1, 2, . . . , 5] after two executions of this program, where p, q are positive
coprime integers. Find p.

4 For some integer n > 0, a square paper of side length 2n is repeatedly folded in
half, right-to-left then bottom-to-top, until a square of side length 1 is formed.
3
A hole is then drilled into the square at a point 16 from the top and left edges,
and then the paper is completely unfolded. The holes in the unfolded paper form
a rectangular array of unevenly spaced points; when connected with horizontal
and vertical line segments, these points form a grid of squares and rectangles.
Let P be a point chosen randomly from inside this grid. Suppose the largest
L such that, for all n, the probability that the four segments P is bounded by
form a square is at least L can be written in the form m n where m and n are
positive relatively prime integers. Find m + n.

5 Recall that in any row of Pascal’s Triangle, the first and last elements of the row
are 1 and each other element in the row is the sum of the two elements above it
from the previous row. With this in mind, define the Pascal Squared Triangle
as follows:

- In the nth row, where n ≥ 1, the first and last elements of the row equal n2 ;
- Each other element is the sum of the two elements directly above it.

The first few rows of the Pascal Squared Triangle are shown below.

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Row 1: 1

Row 2: 4 4

Row 3: 9 8 9

Row 4: 16 17 17 16

Row 5: 25 33 34 33 25

Let Sn denote the sum of the entries in the nth row. For how many integers
1 ≤ n ≤ 106 is Sn divisible by 13?

6 Suppose integers a < b < c satisfy

a + b + c = 95 and a2 + b2 + c2 = 3083.
Find c.

7 In △ABC, AB = 17, AC = 25, and BC = 28. Points M and N are the

midpoints of AB and AC respectively, and P is a point on BC. Let Q be the
second intersection point of the circumcircles of △BM P and △CN P . It is
known that as P moves along BC, line P Q passes through some fixed point X.
Compute the sum of the squares of the distances from X to each of A, B, and
C.

8 Let N be the number of triples of positive integers (a, b, c) with a ≤ b ≤ c ≤ 100

such that the polynomial
P (x) = x2 + (a2 + 4b2 + c2 + 1)x + (4ab + 4bc − 2ca)
has integer roots in x. Find the last three digits of N .

9 For how many permutations π of {1, 2, . . . , 9} does there exist an integer N

such that
N ≡ π(i) (mod i) for all integers 1 ≤ i ≤ 9?

10 Let P be the unique parabola in the xy-plane which is tangent to the x-axis
at (5, 0) and to the y-axis at (0, 12). We say a line ℓ is P-friendly if the x-axis,
y-axis, and P divide ℓ into three segments, each of which has equal length. If
the sum of the slopes of all P-friendly lines can be written in the form − m n for
m and n positive relatively prime integers, find m + n.

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– Algebra Tiebreaker

1 Let
1
f (x) = .
1
1−
1−x
Compute f 2016 (2016), where f is composed upon itself 2016 times.

2 Determine the value of the sum

 
 
 X 
 i+j 
ij(−1)  .

1≤i<j≤50 

3 Suppose x and y are real numbers which satisfy the system of equations
17 23
x2 − 3y 2 = and 3x2 − y 2 = .
x y
√
Then x2 + y 2 can be written in the form m n, where m and n are positive
integers and m is as small as possible. Find m + n.

– Combinatorics Tiebreaker
√
1 For a set S ⊆ N, define f (S) = {⌈ s⌉ | s ∈ S}. Find the number of sets T such
that |f (T )| = 2 and f (f (T )) = {2}.

2 Let S = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7}. Compute the number of sets of subsets T = {A, B, C}

with A, B, C ∈ S such that A ∪ B ∪ C = S, (A ∩ C) ∪ (B ∩ C) = ∅, and no
subset contains two consecutive integers.

3 Let S be the set containing all positive integers whose decimal representations
contain only 3s and 7s, have at most 1998 digits, and have at least one digit
appear exactly 999 times. If N denotes the number of elements in S, find the
remainder when N is divided by 1000.

– Computer Science Tiebreaker

1 A planar graph is a connected graph that can be drawn on a sphere without

edge crossings. Such a drawing will divide the sphere into a number of faces.
Let G be a planar graph with 11 vertices of degree 2, 5 vertices of degree 3, and
1 vertex of degree 7. Find the number of faces into which G divides the sphere.

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2 The Stooge sort is a particularly inefficient recursive sorting algorithm defined

as follows: given an array A of size n, we swap the first and last elements if
they are out of order; we then (if n ≥ 3) Stooge sort the first ⌈ 2n 3 ⌉ elements,
2n 2n
then the last ⌈ 3 ⌉, then the first ⌈ 3 ⌉ elements again. Given that this runs in
O(nα ), where α is minimal, find the value of (243/32)α .

3 Let ε denote the empty string. Given a pair of strings (A, B) ∈ {0, 1, 2}∗ ×
{0, 1}∗ , we are allowed the following operations:


(A, 1) → (A0, ε)



 (A, 10) → (A00, ε)



(A, 0B) → (A0, B)

 (A, 11B) → (A01, B)



 (A, 100B) → (A0012, 1B)



(A, 101B) → (A00122, 10B)

We perform these operations on (A, B) until we can no longer perform any

of them. We then iteratively delete any instance of 20 in A and replace any
instance of 21 with 1 until there are no such substrings remaining. Among all
binary strings X of size 9, how many different possible outcomes are there for
this process performed on (ε, X)?

– Geometry Tiebreaker

1 Point A lies on the circumference of a circle Ω with radius 78. Point B is placed
such that AB is tangent to the circle and AB = 65, while point C is located on
Ω such that BC = 25. Compute the length of AC.

2 Identical spherical tennis balls of radius 1 are placed inside a cylindrical con-
tainer of radius 2 and height 19. Compute the maximum number of tennis balls
that can fit entirely inside this container.

3 Triangle ABC satisfies AB = 28, BC = 32, and CA = 36, and M and N are
the midpoints of AB and AC respectively. Let point P be the unique point in
the plane ABC such that △P BM ∼ △P N C. What is AP ?

– Number Theory Tiebreaker

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1 For all integers n ≥ 2, let f (n) denote the largest positive integer m such that
√
m
n is an integer. Evaluate

f (2) + f (3) + · · · + f (100).

2 For each integer n ≥ 1, let Sn be the set of integers k > n such that k divides
30n − 1. How many elements of the set
[
S= Si = S1 ∪ S2 ∪ S 3 ∪ . . .
i≥1

are less than 2016?

3 Let {x} denote the fractional part of x. For example, {5.5} = 0.5. Find the
smallest prime p such that the inequality

p  p
X
2
n
> 2016
p2
n=1

holds.

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